Berkshire Bach Society announces final concert of the season
Great Barrington, May 20, 2026: The Berkshire Bach Society (BBS) concludes its 2025-2026 season with Musik vor Bach: 17th c French Airs de cour, a concert of early Baroque music featuring James Reese, tenor, and Brandon Acker, Baroque guitar and lute at 3pm on Saturday, June 6, 2026, at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire, 1089 Main Street, Housatonic (MA).
“Airs de cour—songs of the court—are secular songs with guitar and lute accompaniment that were popular in France particularly at the court of Louis XIII,” said Terrill McDade, Executive Director of the Berkshire Bach Society. “They pushed French music past the Renaissance and into the Baroque era, and they lay the foundation for the world inherited by Franȩois Couperin and Rameau that fascinated Bach and Telemann. They are a real departure from the sometimes-over-wrought polyphonic madrigals of the late Renaissance and offer a very different aesthetic—homophonic, sophisticated, formal, and surprisingly moving.”
The BBS event is a rare opportunity to hear private, small-scale art songs that co-existed with the public world of instrumental and large vocal works normally associated with the Baroque period. The air de cour and solo lute music reached an apex during the middle of the 17th century at a time when opera was becoming the dominant vocal medium and the harpsichord was beginning to replace the lute as a solo instrument. The concert provides a glimpse into the work of some of the most important composers of the period, including Antoine Boësset, Louis XIII’s principal musician, Michel Lambert, collaborator with and father-in-law to Jean-Baptiste Lully, Spaniards José Marín and Gaspar Sanz, who wrote tonos humanos, the Iberian equivalent of airs de cour, and others. True to the aesthetic of the time, the concert also includes selections for solo lute.
Tenor James Reese is a GRAMMY-award-winning singer who specializes in Baroque music performance and has been praised for the expressive immediacy, eloquence, and intimacy of his performances. Brandon Acker is a lutenist and Baroque guitarist who is one of the most-watched classical guitar and lute players on the internet. Together they bring the individualistic art of the air de cour to life and provide a satisfying conclusion to the BBS season.
Tickets through BerkshireBach.org/events. Children and students under 25 with valid ID are admitted FREE.
The Berkshire Bach Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization under the U.S. tax code and the oldest, continuously operating, membership-based music organization in the Berkshires. Donations to the Society are deductible to the full extent of the law.